Hello there, lovelies!
This entry is unsurprisingly about fear.
I understand that this is a widely discussed topic. I am making no insinuations that I will be the first to uncover some never before seen aspect about feeling fear, but I have had fear coming up for me again and again. Because I know that humans are so connected, I figure that there are likely to be other people contemplating their fear.
As I am coercing myself away from food and towards more reasonable sources of comfort, fear is popping up like those plastic vermin in Whack-A-Mole on hard mode. Wait, is there "hard mode" for that game? I don't think those games even exist anymore. Anyway... fear is popping up with some frequency for me.
Fear certainly comes with big life decisions and changes, but it also comes in less obvious times. A good example is procrastination. Putting off homework, or not going to the doctor to take care of a cold, or not asking a professor questions when one is confused, or prolonging a date with a friend, or not sending out a e-mail to a family member. There may be a multitude of reasons why people engage in these small and daily procrastinations, but the one common element among each situation is fear. Resistance is caused again and again by fear.
I imagine a hero faced with a great enemy (most-likely an awesome dragon). There are small drops of sweat forming atop their skin, their body is becoming hot and their breath quickens. They have the ability to get this over with quickly and efficiently, but, they can't. Their feet, once so nimble while being coached by Ninja masters and Wizards, are locked in place.
Of course this would never actually happen to some BAMF that trained with Ninja masters and Wizards (and when I say BAMF, you know that I mean Bubbly Amaretto Milk Fairies, right?). BUT, for us normies who only deal with e-mails and other such less-than-dragon-status things, there is still a disengaging that happens where we forfeit our ability and suddenly, we can't send out a two-lined message-- it is as if our "feet" cannot move. This is fear.
But, most humans are not truly afraid of things like e-mails, it's deeper than that. Before you start to berate yourself for fearing simple tasks that "everyone else seems capable of doing fine", know that there is nothing wrong with you. Everyone-- and I mean everyone-- has things which they fixate on for seemingly unreasonable reasons.
Like most people, during my childhood I was treated with irregular bouts of idiocy by my parents in regards to my emotions. I was being selfish if I was upset by something and told so. I was unpleasant and pushed away if I became angry. These and many more examples told my wittle child brain that being open about emotions sometimes meant that I would not be accepted by my parents. So, sometimes, I would try to stop expressing myself which resulted in my expressing myself later over things that had nothing to do with the initial upsetting event.
I remember once being very finicky about a tissue. It wasn't right for some reason and I started crying. My father aptly commented "You're getting upset over a tissue?"
I was shamed and embarrassed at that moment, but I can reply now that, no, Dad, OF COURSE I am not upset over a tissue. Who gets upset over a tissue? It is quite obviously something entirely else that was brought up by my 5-year-old-child frustration with the tissue.
My point here is that there are more things in life that are metaphorical than just poems and political cartoons from the New Yorker. There are many things that represent more than they appear to be. Fear of starting an assignment is not really about writing those 500 words. Of course it's not about that. But fearing being examined or criticized by a professor after you turn it in is a very legitimate thing to be fearful of. Learning that you can grow from criticism and not break into pieces is an important part of life. That's real. That's something fear-worthy.
Feeling fear is important and allows us to grow perspective on different aspects of life. The thing that seems to be running rampant, though, is fearing the feeling of fear.
Television shows for children seem to be pretty understanding about fear. When one watches shows for adults, though, fear becomes something to be ashamed of. A man showing his fear of something is treated almost like a rebuke of his manhood and a woman is portrayed as child-like. But, our humanity is not something which we grow out of nor should it be. We don't get to pick and choose which things about our racial make-up. We can try to push certain feelings away and insist that they don't exist or chastise ourselves or each other for simply feeling things or we can practice acceptance of who we are.
I'm not talking about harmful behaviors that sometimes accompany fear. I'm writing about the way we put barriers against just feeling fear. When we don't push it away or try to make it stronger, fear is like all other emotions: something which comes to us in response to life, will linger as long as it needs to, and then will recede and be replaced by the next response.
This takes a kind of honesty that requires practice. Perhaps especially for men, having confidence that it is perfectly okay to feel what you will is difficult. Cultures tend to minimize how much men are allowed to feel without having negative stigmas placed upon them.
But to women and men alike, I say rebel. Rebel against any force that tries to make you less human or at least makes you pretend that you are. Not "rebel and flip cars over and light shrubbery on fire", but "rebel and feel all that you will and offer no apologies about it". Knowing that you are worth any criticism of another who (as Dr.Seuss would say) "mind" (and therefore "don't matter"), is one of the most self-loving things you can do. If honestly feeling what you feel includes fear, then feel it. When you do, those "small" things suddenly are less scary. They are more easily approachable because you come to know that the fear of them is okay; that you are okay no matter what you feel; you stop being someone to fight against.
Here's to being.
-Kat
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
EMOTIONS: Anger
I'm writing about this because of a recent run with some before-since smothered emotional reactions.
I suppose I ought to explain a little about why these reactions had been smothered at all. Instead of doing drugs and getting wasted like all the cool kids, I became an emotional overeater. This means that I use food to "deal" with uncomfortable feelings instead of just experiencing them. Boredom? Food can distract me! Sad? Food can comfort me! Angry? Well, I'm certainly not allowed to feel such an unattractive and unsettling emotion. Better eat over that, too!
So here I am: 20-years-old and 40 pounds over what I consider to be my natural weight. But that's not really what I want to say. What I want to say is: So here I am: 20-years-old and unhappy with myself. Because it isn't that it is terrible that I have more stored fat than I want, the real problem is the fact that I have been training myself to avoid emotions.
I'm gradually gaining progress on my endeavor to deal directly with emotions and release them. This, in-and-of-itself, creates a problem: when I don't eat over my emotions I actually feel them. During most days I end up thinking something like "oh god. I really want to lose weight fast. I hate this." I may hate having excess fat, but it sure beats feeling fully the anxiety, anger, sadness, and loneliness that plagues my days and nights when I am paying attention. No wonder I have used food so readily in order to not deal with this. It is a LOT less fun than a basket of Furbies. But, then, the wonderful thing about directly dealing with emotions also is the fact that I am truly feeling them.
Crying, yelling, stewing, and validating my emotions is an incredibly freeing experience. I am so in love with feeling things. It's just amazing how bursting into tears can open up the world again and again to reveal how important it is to understand oneself. If I'm crying, and my world is still intact, well, doesn't that mean that even while I'm feeling such huge things, everything is okay? Doesn't it highlight that, indeed, nothing will crumble if I allow myself to express my mind? So it really is okay to just be and try to push or pull myself into another mood; "I am okay just the way I am even when feeling negative emotions".
Now that I have discovered the painful and wonderful world of feeling things, I need to ask myself why it is that I ever felt the need to stop myself in the first place. This is where a lovely emotion called anger comes in.
While discovering what triggered my to start to reject negative emotions, I discover myself being engulfed by one. Why is it that anger is so shunned by most humans? It's "impolite" to be angry; it's seen as disagreeable behavior. It's "mean" to be angry; other people don't want you to be mad with them. It's "immature" to be angry; little kids who haven't adjusted to good and reliable social norms use anger because they are still young.
Anger, though, is an important thing to experience. Anger, like many other emotions, can trigger realizations of needed change. It is also an important part of the grieving process and the secondary emotional response to many other important emotions. Often when someone is experiencing a secondary emotion they may find that it is unmatching for the event; pointing to the underlying emotions and giving way to better understanding and closure. Anger also says a simple statement: "I don't like this".
As a young and endearingly-naive person, I can attest to the frequent sensation of having no idea what the hell is going on, who the hell I am, and what the hell I am trying to do or even what I want to do. I know uncertainty happens throughout life, but man, youth, in all it's splendor and whimsy, can be such a fun-sucker. The phrase "teenage angst" I think points to the jumble of different emotions swimming in their heads during those hormone-imbalanced-hell-years. Because so many other emotions translate so well to the phrase "I don't like this", it is easy to find oneself leaning towards anger in times of confusion. "I'm sad" = "I don't like this" = "I'm angry; "I'm socially awkward and therefore insecure"= " don't like this"= "I'm angry; etcetera, etcetera.
Getting wiser to the cloak that anger can sometimes be makes problem-solving possible. The "I don't like this" statement that comes with anger explains that there is something not being attended to. It is a wonderful tool used by our bodies that something is happening that needs to be payed attention to or solved. So why is it such taboo to feel anger?
The best explanation I can summon as to why people try to quiet others' anger is that they feel uncomfortable being around those who are angry. It is a strong emotion and sometimes results in people unable to look at circumstances from any point of view but their own. This is a little scary, of course. Who wants to be exposed to someone who not only has tunnel vision but who also cannot hear anything you say and is prone to yelling? Not many non-masochists, that's who.
But we, as a culture, do not treat anger as merely something uncomfortable; it is treated as a deadly grenade; a shameful "act" of childishness and insubordination; definitely something to be avoided unless you are ultra-manly and, if that is the case, it is your standard M.O.( par example ).
People often treat anger as a bomb. And the reason for this expectation may actually come from the way the subject is treated. If people are inadvertently taught by those around them to never talk about the things that they believe need to be changed for their wellbeing, isn't it justified that eventually that wittle bundle of upset will turn into an unattended-to, exploding anger baby of unpleasant (and sometimes uncouth) actions? People are sociable creatures (not always in the same way), and we all need to be able to express ourselves.
Currently, I am uncovering rainbow-and-sparkle-filled-memories of people telling me in different ways not to feel things and/or not express them:
Looking sad because your brother went to the ER at four in the morning for a suicide attempt? Don't look sad-- because then I'll feel sad.
♥OR♥
You are angry with me for ragging on your Dad in front of you while I weed through my divorcee problems? You're anger obviously means that you are unappreciative of my mothering and if you don't want me to suspect you of being ungrateful then don't be angry.
♥OR♥
You don't want to live anymore because of how alone you feel? Well, gosh, aren't we a pessimistic and unappreciative person!
Fabulous invalidating emotions by diverting them into negative stigmas, people! Bravo~!♥
At he moment, I am feeling angry about the aforementioned examples and many others which are popping up for me. And you know what? I'm totally okay with allowing myself to feel this. Just as I feel it is justified for other people to become angry with me for actions that I do that they dislike, I think it is an appropriate and very human thing for me to legitimately feel upset about some things in my past that I didn't like.
People are people. Again, we deserve to be able to express ourselves. If people don't want anger to forever be scary replays of teenage-wall-punching-syndrome, then hear their observations and descriptions of what is going on, ask them how events cam to be, and how things could be changed so as to make the situation better for them-- or ask if maybe they need to just be listened to.
Case in point, anger is just as human as happiness. There may not be advertisements of angry people eating salads, and drinking coffee and sodas, but it is just as normal to be unhappy as it is for those devilishly good-looking happy people to show off their their double frappuccinos, colas, and ranch-laden lunches. We just need to treat it as a another emotion: with attention and understanding... instead of caging and tazing it.
-Kat
P.S.
I suppose I ought to explain a little about why these reactions had been smothered at all. Instead of doing drugs and getting wasted like all the cool kids, I became an emotional overeater. This means that I use food to "deal" with uncomfortable feelings instead of just experiencing them. Boredom? Food can distract me! Sad? Food can comfort me! Angry? Well, I'm certainly not allowed to feel such an unattractive and unsettling emotion. Better eat over that, too!
So here I am: 20-years-old and 40 pounds over what I consider to be my natural weight. But that's not really what I want to say. What I want to say is: So here I am: 20-years-old and unhappy with myself. Because it isn't that it is terrible that I have more stored fat than I want, the real problem is the fact that I have been training myself to avoid emotions.
I'm gradually gaining progress on my endeavor to deal directly with emotions and release them. This, in-and-of-itself, creates a problem: when I don't eat over my emotions I actually feel them. During most days I end up thinking something like "oh god. I really want to lose weight fast. I hate this." I may hate having excess fat, but it sure beats feeling fully the anxiety, anger, sadness, and loneliness that plagues my days and nights when I am paying attention. No wonder I have used food so readily in order to not deal with this. It is a LOT less fun than a basket of Furbies. But, then, the wonderful thing about directly dealing with emotions also is the fact that I am truly feeling them.
Crying, yelling, stewing, and validating my emotions is an incredibly freeing experience. I am so in love with feeling things. It's just amazing how bursting into tears can open up the world again and again to reveal how important it is to understand oneself. If I'm crying, and my world is still intact, well, doesn't that mean that even while I'm feeling such huge things, everything is okay? Doesn't it highlight that, indeed, nothing will crumble if I allow myself to express my mind? So it really is okay to just be and try to push or pull myself into another mood; "I am okay just the way I am even when feeling negative emotions".
Now that I have discovered the painful and wonderful world of feeling things, I need to ask myself why it is that I ever felt the need to stop myself in the first place. This is where a lovely emotion called anger comes in.
While discovering what triggered my to start to reject negative emotions, I discover myself being engulfed by one. Why is it that anger is so shunned by most humans? It's "impolite" to be angry; it's seen as disagreeable behavior. It's "mean" to be angry; other people don't want you to be mad with them. It's "immature" to be angry; little kids who haven't adjusted to good and reliable social norms use anger because they are still young.
Anger, though, is an important thing to experience. Anger, like many other emotions, can trigger realizations of needed change. It is also an important part of the grieving process and the secondary emotional response to many other important emotions. Often when someone is experiencing a secondary emotion they may find that it is unmatching for the event; pointing to the underlying emotions and giving way to better understanding and closure. Anger also says a simple statement: "I don't like this".
As a young and endearingly-naive person, I can attest to the frequent sensation of having no idea what the hell is going on, who the hell I am, and what the hell I am trying to do or even what I want to do. I know uncertainty happens throughout life, but man, youth, in all it's splendor and whimsy, can be such a fun-sucker. The phrase "teenage angst" I think points to the jumble of different emotions swimming in their heads during those hormone-imbalanced-hell-years. Because so many other emotions translate so well to the phrase "I don't like this", it is easy to find oneself leaning towards anger in times of confusion. "I'm sad" = "I don't like this" = "I'm angry; "I'm socially awkward and therefore insecure"= " don't like this"= "I'm angry; etcetera, etcetera.
Getting wiser to the cloak that anger can sometimes be makes problem-solving possible. The "I don't like this" statement that comes with anger explains that there is something not being attended to. It is a wonderful tool used by our bodies that something is happening that needs to be payed attention to or solved. So why is it such taboo to feel anger?
The best explanation I can summon as to why people try to quiet others' anger is that they feel uncomfortable being around those who are angry. It is a strong emotion and sometimes results in people unable to look at circumstances from any point of view but their own. This is a little scary, of course. Who wants to be exposed to someone who not only has tunnel vision but who also cannot hear anything you say and is prone to yelling? Not many non-masochists, that's who.
But we, as a culture, do not treat anger as merely something uncomfortable; it is treated as a deadly grenade; a shameful "act" of childishness and insubordination; definitely something to be avoided unless you are ultra-manly and, if that is the case, it is your standard M.O.( par example ).
People often treat anger as a bomb. And the reason for this expectation may actually come from the way the subject is treated. If people are inadvertently taught by those around them to never talk about the things that they believe need to be changed for their wellbeing, isn't it justified that eventually that wittle bundle of upset will turn into an unattended-to, exploding anger baby of unpleasant (and sometimes uncouth) actions? People are sociable creatures (not always in the same way), and we all need to be able to express ourselves.
Currently, I am uncovering rainbow-and-sparkle-filled-memories of people telling me in different ways not to feel things and/or not express them:
Looking sad because your brother went to the ER at four in the morning for a suicide attempt? Don't look sad-- because then I'll feel sad.
♥OR♥
You are angry with me for ragging on your Dad in front of you while I weed through my divorcee problems? You're anger obviously means that you are unappreciative of my mothering and if you don't want me to suspect you of being ungrateful then don't be angry.
♥OR♥
You don't want to live anymore because of how alone you feel? Well, gosh, aren't we a pessimistic and unappreciative person!
Fabulous invalidating emotions by diverting them into negative stigmas, people! Bravo~!♥
At he moment, I am feeling angry about the aforementioned examples and many others which are popping up for me. And you know what? I'm totally okay with allowing myself to feel this. Just as I feel it is justified for other people to become angry with me for actions that I do that they dislike, I think it is an appropriate and very human thing for me to legitimately feel upset about some things in my past that I didn't like.
People are people. Again, we deserve to be able to express ourselves. If people don't want anger to forever be scary replays of teenage-wall-punching-syndrome, then hear their observations and descriptions of what is going on, ask them how events cam to be, and how things could be changed so as to make the situation better for them-- or ask if maybe they need to just be listened to.
Case in point, anger is just as human as happiness. There may not be advertisements of angry people eating salads, and drinking coffee and sodas, but it is just as normal to be unhappy as it is for those devilishly good-looking happy people to show off their their double frappuccinos, colas, and ranch-laden lunches. We just need to treat it as a another emotion: with attention and understanding... instead of caging and tazing it.
-Kat
P.S.
Oh, man. Who is just craving Olive Garden after seeing this?
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